Increasing the Efficiency of Sealing the Borehole in Terms of Spacer Pumping Time

Abstract

The tightness of a borehole is essential for its long-term durability. For this purpose, the column of the pipe is sealed with cement slurry. After contacting the slurry, mud in the borehole is removed. However, the slurry does not effectively remove the remaining drilling mud. Therefore, the annular space is cleaned with a wash. Effectively cleaning the borehole presents quite a problem, as many variables that affect the stability of the borehole need to be considered. The time of contact between the borehole and the wash is very important. On the one hand, insufficient contact time does not guarantee proper removal of the mud. On the other hand, a long contact time may destroy the wall of the borehole. To address these problems, studies were carried out to assess the effect of the wash contact time on annular space cleaning. When determining the time of washing, a compromise between effective cleaning and the stability of the borehole wall is required. In the research presented in this publication, the simplest wash was used, i.e., water. This choice was based on the objective of observing the influence of the wash time on cleaning, i.e., the preparation of the borehole for cementing. By using water, the physicochemical action of surfactants can be ignored. In order to capture changes in cleaning due to differences in contact time, a control test was performed using a pure sandstone core without mud. The effect of the wash contact time on the cleaning of the annular space was investigated by determining the adhesion of the cement sheath to the rock core. First, mud was formed on the core, and then it was removed. By comparing the obtained adhesion to the reference sample, the effectiveness of the deposit removal was determined. On the basis of this research, the optimal wash contact time was determined.

Keywords

• drilling fluids
• wash
• mud cake
• annular space
• borehole cleaning
• cementing